Tag Archives: character

Reading to Write

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“There is creative reading as well as creative writing.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

While browsing the internet for inspiration and tips on how to improve my craft, I came across a bit of advice: If you want to write well, you need to read, a lot. Simple, right? Kind of a no-brainer..

I think I always knew this, but somewhere along the way, I forgot. I grew up with a voracious appetite for the written word. Books sustained me, I couldn’t get enough. I would read these beautifully written passages and wonder how the authors packed so much meaning and detail into them.

But then, I just stopped. I stopped reading, and, eventually, I stopped writing.

It wasn’t until my last year of high school that I took up the habit again. I rediscovered the wonder that a reader is afforded: wonder at the landscapes, the details, the characters. Reading great literature is like peeking into the mind of some great author and seeing how it works, how the ideas come together, how problems arise and how they are solved. 

It’s easy to get discouraged about writing when you feel that you can’t express the most important details and remain true to your subject. But when you’re armed with an arsenal of knowledge, knowledge of what works and what doesn’t  it’s easier to start, to keep going, and to perfect your writing.

Changling

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“A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer.”– Ernest Hemingway

I used to believe that a serious writer had to tackle the deep, depressing aspects of life. So, I would let myself become anti-social to sulk and be “serious”.

I only recently realized that, in buying into this mentality, I was sabotaging myself. Suddenly, I couldn’t believe that I had let so much time pass without really trying.

On a whim, I decided to go to an informational session for my university’s newspaper, and now I’ve already written my first piece and am a contributor. Before I applied, I knew that it was a great opportunity to start doing what I love (and begin to be involved in something I could be passionate about with people who shared my love of the written word) but, in the back of my mind, I thought it would be just another opportunity I let pass me by because of fear: fear of rejection, fear of scrutiny, fear of success, fear of failure. That would have been so easy.

But, somehow, I forced myself to be better than I thought I was, to do something substantial. I took my own advice, and the advice I had always ignored from those wiser than me, and I let myself do something a bit out of character (at least concerning the past year or so). I found that I was capable of change, that I could alter the bits of myself that I found to be lacking, and discover qualities I never knew I had.

I love it when I surprise myself like that.